Let’s talk about an efficient use of time! Our
monthly chapter programs provide a great opportunity for
PMINJ members to network, enjoy a delicious meal (at the
main site), learn about the latest PM topics from
carefully chosen speakers, and earn 1.5
PDUs. You may not know, however, how many of
your fellow PMINJ members generously give their time
each month to put these programs together. The
success of each meeting is attributed to the efforts of
over 55 PMINJ volunteers!

The foundation of each Program meeting starts with
the investigation and discovery of a valuable speaker.
This task is led by Charles Rosen, Speaker Team Leader
and his group. They are always on the lookout for topics
and speakers who can deliver interesting presentations
on relevant subjects. The team works to build a “funnel”
of candidates who are carefully screened and chosen.

Meanwhile, the Satellite Team confirms the sites
who will host smaller groups of PMINJ members for a
webcast of the meeting. Team Leader, Morris
Wrubel, and Logistics Lead, Prasanna Punnam, work to
qualify and support a growing number of locations and
Satellite Coordinators – 18 sites as of May 2012. Note
that attendance at satellite locations is only for PMINJ
members and is free!

Next comes developing the Flyer to announce the
next meeting. Ed Quinn, Flyer Team Leader, is
responsible for repackaging various materials on the
upcoming programs, announcements from Networking, PMO
LCIs, and Sponsors into a condensed bulletin to announce
each Chapter meeting program and agenda.
By the time Marketing sends the email announcement
on the first of the month, and the webmaster posts the
information, the Programs team is in full gear preparing
for the meeting.

Catering Team Leaders, Dan Ackerman and Marc
Matrulli, contact the facility catering the Main Event
to confirm logistics. They share requirements from
the Networking and PMO LCI teams, the Speaker and the
A/V Teams prior to the meeting, and work closely with
the main location’s facilities team throughout the
event.

As members register for the event, Darlaine
Scott-McCoy, Online Registration Team Leader, supports
her team to process and track online registrations,
respond to questions about the process and assists new
members. The Online Registration Team also
prepares the attendance sheets and name tabs for the
Onsite Registration Team and Satellite
Coordinators. Another key behind-the-scenes piece
of the Programs puzzle is provided by Mary Haas, who
creates the speaker’s plaque each month and makes sure
it arrives at the Main Location safely and in time for
the presentation.

Onsite Registration Team Leader, Dennis Komsa, and
his Team create the Registration Table coverage schedule
for the event, and ensure meeting receipts and handouts
are copied and ready for distribution. His team also
reviews and produces the registration sheets and name
tags for the Main Location. When members arrive,
the Onsite Registration Team greets participants and
gets the evening off to a smooth start.

While the Onsite Registration Team is welcoming
the members, and the Networking and PMO LCI groups
conduct pre-dinner activities, the A/V Team is busy
setting up and holding a pre-meeting test call with the
satellites. Team Leader, Harry Chivarou, and his
technical wizards do a sound check and test the
equipment. They launch the conference bridge and
webcast service that Rally Software sponsors, and
monitor the broadcast. While the A/V Team records
the proceedings, Ron Krukowski’s reporting and Dave
Case’s photography capture the meeting highlights.

Chapter President, Judy Balaban, and I start each
meeting promptly at 7PM with Chapter business,
announcements and sponsor spots before turning the
proceedings over to the Guest Speaker.

When the Monthly Programs meeting ends, our
Evaluations Team takes over, and Team Leader, Michael
Lange, sends a questionnaire to all meeting participants
via Survey Monkey to get feedback on the evening.
In the two weeks following the event, the team collects
and analyzes the data to help Monthly Programs
continually improve. While the Registration
Team and Finance Teams confirm registration numbers and
settle accounts, the cycle for the next month’s program
is already in progress.

Monthly Programs are the product of multiple teams
collaborating effectively to deliver a valuable service
to Chapter members. Meetings are held on the third
Tuesday of every month from January through June, and
September through November. The Programs Team does
a fantastic job organizing and hosting these events!
Join us for a fun evening of networking and professional
development and enjoy!

Chapter Announcements

PMINJ Cares – Volunteers Help Franklin Township Food Bank

By Maureen Sammis and Velmani Natarajan

Tour De Franklin – Community Outreach performed by PMINJ
Chapter Volunteers

The Franklin Township
Food Bank organizes the annual Tour De Franklin event on
the last Sunday of April to raise funds for its operations
to continue their mission of supporting neighbors in need
. This year’s event was held on 29 April, which was a
breezy, beautiful day for bike riding.

This 23rd Annual Tour de Franklin attracted 568
participants and raised over $44,000 which exceeded last
year's record (403 participants and $41,000). Everyone had
a terrific time with food, prizes and sunshine galore.

PMINJ Community
Outreach team member, Sandra Seidorf, spearheaded the
drive to recruit PMINJ chapter members. Her efforts
resulted in 12 chapter members volunteering for this
year’s event.

In addition, PMINJ
was well represented by a team of three, who rode in the
Bike a Thon led by Audelle Harvey.

This is an organized event to raise funds.
Therefore, it was planned to start with the registration
of the bike riders to enable them to pay donations along
with nominal fees for the rides. Riders contributed
generously for this precious cause and volunteers
appreciated them for this gesture.

Enthusiastic bike riders of different ages turned up
for the various tracks of 62 miles, 40 miles, 25 miles or
5/10 miles through the scenic back roads of Somerset, East
Millstone, Franklin Park, Kingston and Griggstown.

Following the event,
volunteers suggested improvements in the areas of Food
Prep, Registration Desk, Route Map Services and Rider Care
Service activities based on lessons learned throughout the
day. Barbara A. Fuller, VP of Marketing, will contact the
Food Bank to share those lessons learned.

Thanks to PMINJ volunteers for giving the precious
gift of time and helping to make a positive difference in
our local community!

New Jersey PMI is looking for mentors to help other
project managers in our area to succeed and grow in the
Project Management field. The requirements are few but the
benefits are extraordinary.

PMINJ Cares – Summer Food Drive – 19 June 2012

Most food drives occur during the holiday season. But
when you ask the head of a food bank they will tell you
that summer is a time of great need. Why? Because the
children of the families that depend on the food bank are
out of school and do not have access to free meals.

To satisfy some of that need the Community Outreach
Committee is sponsoring a Summer Food Drive.

PMINJ Goal: In November, 2011, the main location and
three satellites donated approximately 300 pounds of food.
Now that we have 18 satellite locations, we expect to
triple that amount.

What can you do?

Bring a non-perishable food item to the 19 June
Chapter meeting - including satellite locations.

One person in each location will gather the food and
take it to a local food bank.

Volunteer as a point person and / or join the
Community Outreach team, contact Sandy Seidorf at
.

Event Reports

PMINJ May Symposium – A Rousing Success

By Kalpana Patel, PMINJ Symposium Team

PMINJ hosted their 26th Annual Symposium on 07 May 2012,
at the Pines Manor in Edison, New Jersey. Chapter
President, Judy Balaban, and VP of Symposium, Deven
Trivedi, welcomed over 620 project management
professionals. In a continuing effort to build the
strength of our PM community, the theme for this year,
“Strategic Project Management”, was chosen to foster
strategic PM excellence.

The first
keynote speaker of the day, Eric Verzuh, PMP, energized
the audience as he walked through the evolution of project
management in the work place from being practiced, but not
quite visible in the 1980s (PM 1.0) to the current version
(PM 4.0). In alignment with our current innovative
economic culture, the project manager needs to be a
“power” innovator not just an innovator. Eric continued to
ignite the audience with an in-depth analysis of the
“Seven Strengths to Power Innovation” during his engaging
and interactive discussion.

Participants had the option to continue this
exploration via three strategically planned tracks
throughout the day:

Strategic Project Management

Strategic Leadership

Strategic Processes and Tools

At lunchtime our keynote speaker, Terry Schmidt,
brought all the participants together for yet another
invigorating discussion about “Applying Strategic PM in
Work and Life”. Terry showed the audience how they could
use this vertical logic to assess project value, reminding
PMs that wrong assumptions are a major reason that
projects fail, thus affirming the need to define and
verify project objectives. Frank Ryle's closing keynote
address also challenged assumptions in a highly
interactive format taking the audience through exercises
that revealed the gap between language and interpretation.

Jerry Flach, Director of the PMINJ Symposium,
described this event as “Innovative and Influential” Also
The Symposium hosted approximately 24 booths including
vendor exhibitors, Chapter Communities of Practice (CoP)
and Local Communities of Interest (LCI) to provide
participants with networking and information sharing
opportunities.

Members can view Webinars for the symposium at our
website
. Members will need to log-in to view these
Webinars. Take advantage of this free service
available to PMINJ members only, to learn from great
speakers and earn PDUs.

PMINJ March 2012 Chapter Meeting: PMI – The First 40 Years

By Ron Krukowski, PMP

The 20 March 2012 PMINJ Chapter Meeting was held at the
Pines Manor in Edison, NJ and was a special event for all
who attended. This event featured one of PMI’s
founders, Jim Snyder!

Jim
Snyder, a PMI Fellow and one of the original Founders, is
one of a very few people who can provide the perspective
of more than 40 years of PMI activity and
experience. He is a past Volunteer Executive
Director, President and Chairman of the PMI Board.
He is a past member of the Board of Directors of the PMI
Educational Foundation, Treasurer of the Delaware Valley
Chapter, and a member of the Editorial Review Board of the
Project Management Journal. Mr. Snyder, who is
casually referred to as the “Father of PMI,” has been
awarded the PMI Man of the Year Award and is an Honorary
Life Member of the Institute. He is also a founding
member of the PMI Delaware Valley Chapter and the
Pharmaceutical Specific Interest Group (SIG). Mr.
Snyder served as a project manager for PMI’s World
Headquarters in Newtown Square, Pennsylvania. The
James R. Snyder Center for Project Management Knowledge
and Wisdom, located in the headquarters building, is named
in his honor, as is the James R. Snyder Student Paper
Award.

Jim started his presentation “PMI – The First 40 Years”
with a moment of silence in memory of his friend, PMI
Co-Founder, Fellow and Project Manager, Eric Jenett.
Later in his presentation, Jim stated, “There are only
four of us original members / founders of PMI left and we
are not getting any younger so you better book us fast!”

Jim’s presentation continued to take us on a very
interesting journey through the history of PMI – where it
came from, where it is today, and where it is
heading. This presentation was a captivating blend
of some nostalgia with the main focus on the incisive
analysis of factors that motivated a small group of
project managers that took their work seriously to start
the association we now know as the Project Management
Institute.

In-Depth with Jim Synder

Prior to the main PMINJ Chapter Meeting, there was a
small round table discussion with Jim. Attending this
session was Frank Walker, Charles Rosen, Lisa Blake,
Maureen Sammis and Ron Krukowski. During this
session, the group took turns asking Jim questions and he
shared his most valuable insights with us.

Question: Where did the idea of creating the
organization we now know as PMI originate? Jim: It really evolved and came about out of
frustration. Back then you could learn about PERT and CPM
from Georgia Tech University. Also, once you read
everything on the topic of project management (realizing
both books were very interesting), there was nowhere to
get additional information. The question was, “What’s
next? How can we communicate with each other?” We
thought about having a symposium and eventually we went
from the “thinking” stage to one of “doing.” We
needed a vehicle to exchange information, experiences,
etc.

Question: Was Project Management Institute the
original name or did the organization start out as
something else? Jim: We considered the name, “American Project
Management Society.” We officially named it,
“American Project Management Institute” but renamed it to
“Project Management Institute” when we said that this
organization would have global participation and
membership.

Question: How long did it take for PMI to have its
first formal meeting?Jim: PMI took 2-3 years from inception to its first
meeting. There were 70 people in attendance and 30 of
these actually joined the organization at that event. We
had been keeping track of our first 100 members; today,
there are only 5 or these original members remaining.

Question: The term Project Manager is thrown around
loosely. How do you feel about this?Jim: This does drive me a bit crazy! Along the way,
people have lost sight of two very important things. The
first is, “What is a project?” And the second, “What are
my responsibilities?”

Question: What strikes you different about project
managers today compared to 40 years ago?Jim: I think we are struggling with the same issues
as 40 years ago. Regarding 40 years ago, I don’t think
there was an official title called “Project Manager” as we
know it before the Polaris Missile Project. However,
people did manage projects, but there really was no formal
title “Project Manager.” From my recollection, the
term “Project Manager” came about close to when PMI was
officially born. I will say that I think projects
were run much better in the late 1970s and early 1980s.

Question: In your opinion, is a project manager
born or grown?Jim: I do believe that you can train someone to be
a very good project manager. But then I would ask - are
they a project manager or are they managing
projects? You need to find one’s strengths, since in
my view, a project manager manages people and needs a
higher degree of focus on the “softer” skills. One
managing projects is the one to establish and maintain the
critical path while crunching the numbers to ensure the
project stays on track (my preference was to manage
projects). It is essential to run a Meyers Briggs
assessment to establish a person’s strengths and engage
them where they will be most effective.

Question: We are seeing an overall loss of
precision as it pertains to managing projects in the
industry. Many don’t feel the need to capture and manage
to a critical path. What is your take on this lack of
precision?Jim: I think it is critical that people establish a
true critical path and manage to it. Without defining the
critical path activities and understanding the
interrelationships between those activities, you really
can’t manage a project successfully.

Question: How do you feel social media and
technology have impacted PMI?Jim: Based on the connectivity of society and the
speed at which information flows, I don’t think we would
have been able to start an organization like PMI in this
environment. The key to our early success and growth was
the fact that there was no other place to obtain project
management “best practices” information or hear about what
and how other professionals were handling common
challenges. We became the entity that created the original
community to bring professionals together to share
valuable information and experience.

Question: What is the social responsibility of PMI?Jim: We have a code of ethics that is the heart of
the organization. I also think that members of PMI need to
become more involved in their communities and abroad. It
would be nice to see a PMI emergency response team for
coordinating relief activities for local as well as
regional disasters. Who better to coordinate these
activities but the professionals within our organization?

Question: How do you feel overall about PMI and
where it is today?Jim: It still amazes me that this organization has
grown to over 470,000 Certified Professionals (PMPs) from
our humble beginning of just five of us in a room.
Although I was against it, certifications are what really
sparked the organization’s growth. This is a great
organization where knowledge is shared, people come
together to share experiences and form networking
relationships. I do believe we must take a more pro-active
approach to get the word out about the value of project
management and its role in business and engage Senior
Executives regarding PMI’s added value.

Closing Thoughts:Jim: I think it is important for us to get back to
the basics and the foundations of this organization.
We need to be thinking “critical path”, identifying and
managing those key interdependent activities. Keep
in mind that if you can successfully manage 20% of the
activities, you can meet a target date. You need to
be flexible because this 20% will be different from the
20% you were managing yesterday.

I believe PMI has a great future! We need to grow
the corporate understanding of project management and its
positive impact over the next 5-10 years. We are looking
for ways to make professional development even faster and
more effective and grow stronger support for our chapters.

I have worked to establish the PMI Educational
Foundation to manage scholarships. Last year we
contributed $400k in scholarships and next year we are
targeting $1 million in scholarships. Teaching project
management to children is a long-term goal and would be
great if we could get it into high school curriculums.

I am currently working on starting a reciprocity
program where members who have transferred would have
their bio sent to their new chapter president and they
would be invited to the next event and formally welcomed.

With that, this roundtable interview concluded and
we thanked Jim for spending this time with us and making
this an extraordinary event!

Local Community of Interest – LCI – Career Networking

By Graham Wisdom

Personal Branding – Presented by Dale Carnegie Training

Don Warkentin, Director of Training at Dale Carnegie
Training in Bordentown, NJ, presented a talk on Personal
Branding to the Career Networking LCI. His talk focused on
networking for project managers and began with a simple
yet powerful exercise. He had the group focus on finding
some good news to engage in conversation with a partner.
Participants found that focusing on positive experiences
is a great way to begin a conversation and connect with
others. His exercise emphasized the way good news adds
energy and can even make people smile.

Other speakers have consistently reminded the
Networking LCI audience that “You are the CEO of your
personal brand!” It is clear, therefore, that identifying
your brand is important. Don suggested that project
managers begin to design a personal branding statement by
completing 3 simple sentences:

I am an expert at:

The value I provide to clients is:

I am unique because:

The goal of completing these 3 sentences is to help you
to clearly define your skill sets and the value you can
add to clients. In a networking situation it is
important to be able to clearly distinguish yourself from
others. Dale Carnegie believes that being pro-active
about your networking relationships and working hard to
add value to others will help you have even greater
success professionally.

Don then explored several of Dale Carnegie's key
human relations principles that are essential to
networking. He discussed the value of speaking in
terms of others’ interests and how critical it is for us
to add value to others in order to build a strong
network. The group was encouraged to complete a
relationship map and explored Dale Carnegie's first 9
human relations principles, followed by identifying 3 key
relationships in their network.

Finally, the session ended with a technique to help
engage others in conversation. The Conversation
Stack is a powerful tool that can allow you to begin to
easily explore common interests. Some suggested
questions to utilize are: Do you have children? Pets?
Where do you work? Do you travel? Finding something
in common helps the conversation since you’ll then have a
basic understanding of each other’s mutual interests.

Don was assisted, during this lecture, by Radia
Carr, a Corporate Training Consultant, also with Dale
Carnegie Training.

The meeting was sponsored by Nicole Hodapp of Walden
University, which offers a Project Management course of
study.

PM Articles

Next Generation of Project Management – Part I

It’s Not Just the Project; It’s the Business!

In spite of rapid changes in science and technology, the
project management (PM) discipline is following concepts
that were established in the mid 60’s. While the PMBOK
Guide and PMI’s PMP certification are important and
necessary building blocks for the profession, it seems
they are no longer enough for the needs of today’s
dynamic, uncertain, and competitive projects.

Projects today are more complex,
changing, and uncertain than ever. They are highly
impacted by the dynamics in the business environment and
dealing with increased urgency and pace. Furthermore, no
project today is completed exactly as planned, and “one
size does not fit all.” Few of these realities are being
addressed by the traditional project management approach.
The question to answer now is: What’s next in project
management?

First, meeting the project’s time, budget and scope
goals does not guarantee a successful project. Unless the
project has met its business objectives, we cannot assume
“mission accomplished.” Thus, projects today must be seen
as business-related activities, and they should be managed
with a strategic business-focused mindset to achieve the
business results.

A second evolution is in starting to see the role of
a project manager as a leader that needs to deal with
creating the vision for the motivation and inspiration of
the team. And finally, project managers must learn to
adapt their project to its context and environment.
Agility is just one step in this direction. We need to
identify upfront the project’s unique context and select
the right approach for each project.

The next generation of PM will transform project
managers into leaders who must deal with the strategic and
business aspects of their projects, build a vision to
inspire and motivate their project team, and know how to
adapt their style to the project’s context and
environment. The new world of project management is
illustrated in the next figure. On top of traditional PM
we must build three new layers: The adaptive approach,
collectively called Dynamic Project Management, the
Inspired Leadership approach, dealing with vision and
inspiration, and finally, on top, the Business Focused
Strategic approach.

Figure 1: The New World of Project Management

The Strategic Project Leadership® (SPL) approach
represents this new world. It was built on the foundation of
traditional project management during twenty years of
research and work with corporations. SPL helps organizations
deal with their projects in a flexible and adaptive way and
focus their projects on business results by creating value,
competitive advantage, and winning in the marketplace. This
integrated, industry-proven, and PMI award-winning approach
combines the business-related needs of projects, the
operational aspects of getting the job done, and the
leadership perspective of inspiring and motivating the
team. SPL enables project teams to integrate Strategic
Project Leadership into their current practices by building
new skills on top of the existing PMBOK knowledge areas.

Dr. Shenhar, the developer of SPL and the CEO of The
SPL Group, is regarded as one of the world’s leading experts
in project management, innovation, and execution leadership.
He was the first recipient of the PMI Research Achievement
Award, and is the holder of five academic degrees in
engineering and management.
After a first career as executive in the defense
industry, Dr. Shenhar served as tenured professor at several
universities where he founded new academic programs,
including project management programs at Stevens Institute
of Technology and Rutgers University. He is one of the most
published and cited authors in project management, and his
work has influenced project and technology management
research and education throughout the world. He served as
consultant to major corporations such as 3M, Honeywell,
Intel, NASA, Dow Jones & Co., U.S. Army, and Tata. He is
co-author of the recent book, Reinventing Project
Management, published by Harvard Business School Press. The
book was selected among the top five best business books of
the year.

New Certificate Holders

The following have received their
certifications since the last newsletter (through 30 Apr
2012):

Article Submission & Publication
Information

Editor guest
editor Barbara Fuller

Submissions:

Where to Send: Contact the newsletter editor,
at
for newsletter related items, to submit articles and to
provide feedback. All members are invited to submit
articles, meeting reviews, or other items of interest
for publication.